If you’re one of the few RJD2 devotees who has managed not to throw pointy objects at your stereo in disgust while listening to his last couple of records, make sure to get to The Casbah early tonight to catch openers Dalek (there’s an umlaut over the “a”). My crystal ball tells me they’re one of those groups destined to be ignored by modern music fans only to be rediscovered a couple of decades later, when writers will refer to them as “essential,” “incendiary,” “trenchant,” and a bunch of other adjectives that only music journalists use.
After more than 10 years of existence, they still seem to be ignored by most outside the underground scene. And while they get love from the music press - someone at XLR8R called them “the most innovative hip-hop crew on Earth” - it’s true that the group isn’t exactly accessible to the masses. But what other crew could possibly demand enough artistic credibility to sign to Mike Patton’s Ipecac label, or produce a full-length collaboration with krautrock legends Faust (on 2004’s Derbe Respect, Alder)?
Consisting of Dalek (the MC) and producer Oktopus, the majority of their material is produced at the duo’s Deadverse Studios in Northern New Jersey. Adopting the rhetoric of rock and roll’s finest revolutionaries (lots of Public Enemy, dashes of MC5 and Dylan, but you know, black) they craft soundscapes increasingly less reliant upon tried-and-true hip hop sampling techniques, using sheets of guitar noise, monotone vocal cadences and screeching modal tones while still managing to put down tracks worthy of intense head-nodding. It’s music that bridges huge gaps in the American underground, appeasing metalheads, noise fiends, and hip hop heads alike.
Dalek’s Abandoned Language was probably the best hip hop album of last year, too, but I digress. It’s pretty serious stuff, not really well suited for fans of RJD2, and it’s hard to imagine why he would have them opening, especially considering the easy-listening abominations of Since We Last Spoke and The Third Hand. It’s like he’s just begging to get blown off the stage.
Dalek: http://www.myspace.com/dalek
